Colour Discrimination Ellipses Explained by Metamer Mismatching

Many psychophysical experiments have shown that colour discrimination varies substantially with the region of colour space in which the colours reside. Many models of the experimental data have been proposed, and many uniform colour spaces have been developed that attempt to represent colour in a coordinate system such that equally discriminable colours are equal distances apart, but all of them are based on fits to the experimental data. Many provide good fits to the data, but they remain data models and do not explain why colour discrimination varies in the way it does. In contrast, this paper outlines a theory of colour discrimination based on the uncertainties reflected in the extent of metamer mismatching. The greater its extent, the more finely a colour needs to be discriminated.